News

It’s been two years and I haven’t updated my website…what gives? Well here’s the short of it.

I’ve been EXTREMELY busy with DPAN.tv. Two years ago we launched the FIRST online TV network website dedicated to providing accessible content in American Sign Language, Voice-over, and captioning. What started as a small team of 5 of us grew into a 32+ person operation with staff all throughout the country. My job duties continued to grow endlessly. Starting off as a Content Manager for the website trying to pull in webseries, short films, ASL music videos, and much more, my primary focus shifted into the Director and Associate Producer for DTV News which has been VERY time consuming. Ensuring daily news and information is delivered to our audiences on time, with correct information, unique, original, and ACCESSIBLE for the Deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers as well as audiences that may or may not know ASL is a lot of work. Our staff grew quickly to 32 and I oversaw every aspect from the story selections, script writing, all the way through filming, voice-over and captioning. It’s a tedious but imperative process. Along the way we also launched a new series which I helped produce, Tru-Biz, a Deaf related hollywood/entertainment news series.

In addition to overseeing these programs, I developed my own “character” and starred in my own short fun segments called “Facts of Life with Rex Turner”, helped produce “Between the Lines”, and helped make history with DPAN.tv by providing live interpretations for the 2016 Presidential Debates, AND the Superbowl halftime show. In mid 2015 I also flew out to LA to work alongside director Jules Dameron as her Assistant Director for the soon-to-be-released web series “Reverse Polarity”. Alongside overseeing the staff and all these projects, I have also been overseeing production for multiple external clients for DPAN.

That’s just a brief synopsis of the past two years, not including international performances with Sean Forbes in London, numerous DJ gigs and other really cool highlights and achievements. It’s been A LOT of work, so I hope you can forgive me for a lack of website updates.

With all that being said – I’m currently working to renovate my website to reflect all my latest projects, jobs, highlights, and make this website more current. Til then, thanks for your patience as I work on getting my site up-to-date.

Created a new LinkedIn account and updated all my past work history. Been a long time coming. Give it a peek, add me, write me an endorsement or if you feel like being critical, give me some feedback. The list of social media keeps on growing!!

A video I shot with director Adrean Mangiardi last December is up for Gospel Music’s ‘Stellar Awards’ “Video of the Year”. The video is for The Rance Allen Group’s “Clap Your Hands (A Lil Bit Louder). This is an exciting nomination for the video, and we look forward to seeing the results.

Check out the video if you haven’t seen it yet.

*Edit: We did not win, but it was a honor for our video to be nominated for one of the Gospel Community’s biggest awards.

Extremely proud to share this new music video I Assistant Directed alongside directors Adrean Mangiardi and Jules Dameron for D-PAN and AT&T. The video is for Walk The Moon’s newest single “Different Colors”. This video is part of AT&T’s “Feel The Music” campaign, in which we encourage Deaf, Hard-of-hearing and ASL users to create their own video of the song. The winners of the contest get a VIP meet and greet experience with the band.

We filmed this project in August 2015 in New York City. Ever since Walk the Moon (WTM) reached out to D-PAN prior to the release of “Shut Up and Dance” to pitch a video for the song, WTM was a band I kept my eye on. When AT&T and D-PAN were discussing songs to do for this campaign, WTM was a band we both had listed.

Fast forward to the shoot, it was an overall fun, stressful but amazing experience. Many of the talent we wanted involved with this project were just moving to New York to start rehearsals for “Spring Awakening” broadway play in NYC, so we reached out to Spring Awakening directors to see if we can work together. This helped solidify the location of the shoot. We also brought in a few past D-PAN performers such as Kriston Lee and Katelyn from D-PAN’s “Waiting on the World to Change” video that were nearby.

I was just getting back from LA a week and half prior working with Jules Dameron as the Assistant Director for a new TV series she created, and took the reins on coordinating this project. We had an overall crew of about 70 individuals, ranging from cast members, production team, and players from AT&T and the marketing team. The day of the shoot saw over 85 people on set, and it was my responsibility to communicate with everyone. I’m quite proud of the work everyone put into it – definitely in my top three work experiences. I’m happy to see this project take a life, and can’t wait to see community created videos.

So if you’re an ASL user, whether you’re Deaf, hard-of-hearing, hearing, it doesn’t matter. Go check out the campaign page at feelthemusic.att.com, find out how to enter the contest, and make your own video for a chance to win a VIP meet and greet with Walk the Moon. But before you do…check out the video we made.

Just wrapped a 72 hour west coast all hustle, no sleep tour with Sean Forbes and Jake Bass. We performed in Salt Lake City for the first time, seeing an amazing turnout of about 350 fans. We then flew over to Reno to perform at the University of Nevada, Reno, with a tiger in the crowd. From there we flew out to Riverside, California to perform at a Deaf Awareness Street festival where the temperature was a cool 100 degree’s when we took the stage. It was nice to be back on stage with the band again after a summer hiatus.

Salt Lake City

University of Nevada, Reno

This guy showed up to our University of Nevada concert…school mascot is…a wolf?!?

The last four months of life has been absolutely crazy busy, which explains my complete lack of updates. Life has a funny way of taking you places that you least expect.

Since I last posted in May, I took a spill skateboarding on a halfpipe and fractured my wrist, which put my left hand out of commision for a month. While that was healing, I headed off to work my 10th Bonnaroo Music Festival which saw me clock in 82 hours of work in just 8 days. I took some much needed R&R and took off to Chicago to enjoy the Grateful Dead’s final GD50 shows. Followed up by a short 5 day vacation in Tamarindo, Costa Rica which was the last of my summer downtime.

In July, I was invited to LA to Assistant Direct alongside director Jules Dameron for a new online TV series that is currently under wraps and will be debuting in the New Year. After a week engulfed in Hollywood with a small crew of 25, I then took off to New York City with the D-PAN crew to Assistant Direct a soon-to-be released ASL music video for a band that is currently dominating the charts right now. This project saw me coordinating and scheduling a shoot with a crew of 50 and overseeing 80 people on set.

This summer also saw me working quite a lot of concerts, ranging from Lana Del Ray, Kenny Chesney and One Direction to name a few.

I’ll let the attached photos share my stories of summer. I’ve broken them up into 3 galleries;
1st: Rock n Rollers
2nd: Concerts
3rd: Photos from the Film sets I worked on

I look forward to sharing all of my work very soon. Until then…

Legendary rock photographer Danny Clinch

One and only guitar legend in the making, Gary Clark Jr.

One of my Guitar Idols growing up, Wes Borland of Limp Bizkit, and currently of Queen Kwong

Fred Sablan, bass player for Marilyn Manson (’10-’14)

Rob Derhak, bass player of Moe.

I had the pleasure of working with Josh Castille on several projects this summer, as well as with Ally Stroker from Glee. Both can currently be seen in NYC Broadway run of “Spring Awakening”

The Deaf and Loud Spring ’15 Tour has officially wrapped. Another amazing journey with band and crew – after warming up with a few shows around Michigan, we hit the road for three weeks starting with a show at Mt. Aloysius College in PA, and a D-PAN ASL Music Video workshop in Delaware, continuing on to shows in South Carolina, St. Augustine, and Tampa Fl, Corpus Christi, Austin, and Houston TX, stops in Memphis to visit Graceland and Sun Studios, and wrapping with shows in Louisville and lastly Mississippi, it was one for the books.

A special THANK YOU to everyone that came out to show their support and rock out with us. It was AWESOME to have Robbie Wilde, a Deaf DJ from New Jersey join us. Thanks to Sean Forbes for once again bringing me along on tour. I couldn’t be more honored to share the stage with Sean, Robbie, and Jake Bass.

To be able to tour, play music with friends, meet friends old and new, inspire people, and make a living doing this as a Deaf individual is something I’ve worked extremely hard for, and I’m forever grateful for all the kind words and support. Sean and I have been touring together for 8 years, and it’s amazes me that we can continue doing this and make these shows bigger and better everytime we go back to a town.

Deaf and Loud, Band and Crew

Kalamazoo, MI

Central Michigan University

My gear for the tour

Newark, Delaware

South Carolina School for the Deaf

Band and Crew pre-show hangs in St. Augustine Fl.

Deaf and Loud, band and crew

St. Augustine, Florida

Reverse Crowd shot in St. Augustine

University of South Florida, Tampa

Rest Stop hangs in Texas

Corpus Christi, TX

“Can’t Take Away The Good Times” in Austin, TX

Austin, TX

Deaf actor, Russell Harvard in Austin, TX

Houston, TX

The band spent a day off in Mempis, TN at Elvis’ Graceland.

My Elvis Pose

Swung by Sun Studios after visiting Graceland

This mic was used by Sun Studio Legends such as Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, B.B. King, Muddy Waters and so many more!